355:2 -- Adventure to the burrows
Summary Adventure to gather weapons for the upcoming dread lord fight. Discovered a mansion behind the barrows, with an undead, magic, Elven lord who was raising zombies and had a juggernaut. Magical Items Magical Manicles -''' healing powers, held by Felix and Seraphine '''Magic sword - designed to kill incorpreal beings, held by Scratch Lock of hair - that will allow the holder to return from a last breath if they give the hair to death, helb by Aria Locket - that if will attack the wearer if they are sleeping, held by Aria Ashosh breast plate - +3 armor and if you are a follower of Ashosh then armor counts for attacks that normally ignore armor, held by Aria *the powers on these have been slightly edited by a GM, will update when I get a wizard to tell me what they do for sure. Aria's report Felix, Scratch and Seraphine answered Aria's call to head to the burrows in search of weapons for the upcoming battle against the shadow lords. On the way to the burrows we encountered a nomadic orc patrol with my old friend Burra in it. I told her about the upcoming battle with the shadow lords and she seemed keen to help. She was going to ask Cheif Forgar (her new husband) to send assistance, she also warned us that the dead were walking in these parts. Seraphine said it was no problem as she was a cleric of the inevidables (which disgusted the orcs). When we got to the burrows we found the tombs had been smashed open. Felix managed to get into a spot of trouble and Seraphine created animated a dead and called him Mook. This would have been fine if they hadn't tried to be stealthy as we headed towards the mansion in the woods. Scratch and I scouted ahead, and found that most of the ground floor of the mansion had rooms crammed full of zombies. We found a room with only 3 zombies in and smashed a window to get in. Once we took care of the zombies, the others arrived and we proceeded to block the other ground floor rooms so that the zombies would have a hard time getting out. The second floor was pretty much a large library (the books were to faded to read, but I could tell they were written in ancient elvish). In there we were attacked by 5 zombies and the ghost of the lady of the house who wanted the fighting to stop. Poor Scratch wasn't a match for the lady and as she had been bitten by a few zombies joined the ranks of the undead. We discovered a sword that had a magic spell protecting it, so we decided it would be best to grab after we had explored the rest of the house. On the third floor there was a dias at the back of the room. Here we encounted the undead, spell casting lord of the house, along with 20 zombies and a weird 2 torsoed legless creature that ripped off part of Seraphines face. Felix joined the ranks of the undead in this room. When we had almost finished off the lord, a juggernaut took him to the 4th level. Aria and her hawk finished off the two torsoed beast, then the party went to the top floor to finish off the lord. When we got there the undead thieves decided to check for traps. The room wasn't trapped, but they were injured (and Scratch flew out the window) when the juggernaut bounded out to the landing. Aria shot the juggernaut and a body fell out of his arm. He then activated magical manacles and healed the gash in his arm. Aria noticed this and instructed the party to try and remove them, Seraphine managed to take one hand off (another body falling out of the juggernaut) before she too was thrown out the window. Felix did some nifty dodging to keep from being attacked while I faught the juggernaut removing the last manacle with the help of my hawk. The juggernaut fell to the entrance way and Scratch ran in and dealt the final blow. Aria picked up the magical manicles. Felix and Aria entered the room on the fourth floor (a bedroom) Aria killed the lord and told the ghost of the lady that her death had been avenged (her husband had murdered her). In return she gave Aria a lock of the hair off her body (on the bed), and Aria took her necklace very pretty but also cursed. The lady turned to ash, leaving behind the symbol of Ashosh, after we had seen it, the ash turned into a breastplate with the symbol of Ashosh on the front and a winged symbol on the back. Meanwhile Seraphine and Scratch went to retrieve the magic sword. Seraphine's report In the darkest corner of the tavern sits a hooded figure, as she looks up at your approach, you recognize her as Seraphine: Cleric of the Inevitable. Something is different about her, you cannot fathom what it is however, "Do not be alarmed." she says as she pull back her hood. On one side of her face, the skin is completely torn away, revealing the bone underneath. "This is just a flesh wound, nothing more. I was lucky to escape with my life for I very nearly joined the ranks of the undead. Let me tell you a horror story." she whispers grinning a skeletal creepy smile as she relates the nightmarish events of her latest adventure. I answered Aria's request for a Cleric to aid in searching the Undead Barrows for artifacts that would help us in the war against the Dread Lords of Shadow. It was clear that something had freed the undead from their tombs outside the barrows, this did not bode well, clearly some foul magic was afoot here. Before we could investigate furthur, Felix was dragged into a hole and attacked by some undead, Aria, Scratch and I were forced to go down after him where we quickly dispatched the foul creatures. After a quick conversation with one of corpses I learnt they were under the service of a Lord Ardeen who lives in the mansion nearby. After I animated one of the corpses, whom I named Mook we set out to confront this evil elven lord. On the way there Felix managed to get dragged into yet another hold where he was once again attacked while Mook and I fought off an ambush by more of them while Aria and Scratch went on ahead. Stepping into the Mansion, I held the army of undead back with my holy presence, they dared not come within reach of such a powerful Cleric and I strode right through them with Felix at my side into a room where we found Aria and Scratch. Walking up a flight of stairs we entered a library, where a fight broke out with the five undead there. In the middle of our fight the ghost of a beautiful elven lady appeared, screaming at us to stop fighting. Alas we did not listen and Scratch the halfing theif fell at the hands of the banshee. Realizing she was serious we sheathed our swords and to our surprise watched as the apparition finished off the remaining Zombies before floating away, claiming that she hated violence. Scratch rose from the dead, neither alive nor dead and followed us through a secret passage found by Felix where we saw a beautiful shimmering sword. Deciding to come back for it later, we went up the next flight of stairs and into a room full of undead, a foul undead lich seated upon a throne in their midst. Once I turned his entire army into a cowering mess, he decided I was the biggest threat and began hurling spells at me, none of which hit, thank the Inevitables. With an arrow from her holy bow, Aria halved the disgusting rabble, while the two halfings fought off the rest of them which resulted in Felix losing his life also. Before I could deal with the cursed lich, a juggarnaut corpse smashed through the wall, grabbed his master and escaped by smashing his way through the roof but not before Aria got a few arrows into the lich. As Aria and I investigated the dais, a monstrocity appeared, a hideous mismash of torsos and limbs and it went straight for me. Ripping the skin of my face the disgusting creature added it to it's own, how dare it defile such a holy warrior as myself. Cursing the wretched creature, I attacked and between Aria and I we finished it off while Scratch and Felix who was now also a zombie, dealt with the remaining undead. We headed upwards to the fourth floor where the juggarnaut crashed through the wall, sending both halfings flying, then proceeded to toss me around like a rag doll. Sensing the manacles on it's wrist were magical, Felix and I sliced off it's hands before I was thrown into another room. As the giant fell through to the bottom floor, caving it in on the way down, we descended in time to witness Scratch finishing it off while Aria killed off the lich. Finally the ghost of the eleven lady was laid to rest and the nightmare was over, I only hope she finds peace and that such horrors never occur again. But as long as evil exists, I will not stopping fighting, that is inevitable. Seraphine covers her face once more as you walk away. Category:Actual Play